Germany to win the World Cup, 18 analysts say after 10000 simulations

The 19-year-old has had an impressive breakthrough campaign for Liverpool, featuring in nine Champions League matches, including the quarterfinal win over Manchester City and the semifinal victory against AS Roma, and 19 league games. The 24 clubs would share a pot of approximately £1.5 billion with the victor earning £100 million and a guaranteed £50 million just for participating.

The format is expected to include eight groups of three, a quarter-final stage, semi-finals and final, taking place from June 10-28 in 2021.

Jesus scored 17 goals across all competitions for Premier League champion City this season while Firmino has netted 27 to help Liverpool secure a fourth-placed league finish and reach the Champions League final.

An emergency Federation Internationale de Football Association meeting is expected to be held early next month to rubber stamp the tournament.

It criticised "the hasty timing and lack of concrete information and underlined the need for a clearly defined procedure, which respects existing structures and decision-making bodies and which involves all key stakeholders".

Should the competition indeed go ahead as planned it would result in the current World Club Cup being done away with, as well as the Confederations Cup which traditionally takes places a year ahead of the World Cup.

Bobby Barnes, the European president of global players' union FIFPro, is a part of a committee that will meet in Lyon at some point today to talk about the plans. Would clubs prioritise that over the Champions League?

Traditionally reserved for young boys who are on the books at professional football clubs, the role will now be carried out by the girls team at Russian Federation versus Saudi Arabia on June 14 in Moscow's Luzhniki Stadium.